


Starstruck Luck

by Lendra



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-27 23:33:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16229591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lendra/pseuds/Lendra
Summary: Shiro discovers a memory in the desert.





	Starstruck Luck

**Author's Note:**

> An application for a zine!

The sun felt good.

 

It had been some time since he’d felt it like that. Regiment had been a familiar obligation that had bolstered him to a tier of power he’d not thought himself capable barely years ago, yet a sandswept wind pelting his jacket and the roar of machinery tamed below him had become a coveted rarity.

 

It was not often Shiro exerted himself for recreation, but the canyons had a color to them in the sunrise that morning too vibrant to deny. Few and far between as it were, an elevated position occasionally had its perks. He was busy, young as he was, and when he requested his time, it was taken seriously. Lucky for him. Or perhaps not.

 

His wrist curled, the engine rumbled, and he took off.

 

A blistering thirty-eight degrees centigrade made for good motivation to keep pace and Shiro was up for the challenge. He knew the rocks, a geometric canvas mapped out in earth all pushed and pulled into gnarled formations from tectonic collision. An upheaval of clay and splits from fissures that lead deep into the crust. It was nothing he could not navigate. He pushed onward, his heart a ticking bomb in his chest, and as he burst into a territory less familiar, he did not leisure.

 

He was pelted with sand and dirt, from plumes of dust kicked up from the thrusters. His body was becoming coated in earth and sweat, his hair filtered with it. It felt fantastic. He couldn’t help from letting out a cry, something wild encased within him that burst forth in an exuberant rush that reminded him time and time again why it was worth it. Sometimes it terrified him how easily forgotten it could become and moments like this, of something raw and real, he remembered.

 

He stopped beneath the curl of a ledge, shadowed and cool and he plucked the goggles from his face, shaking out his hair as flecks of dirt and sand pinged against the hovercraft.

 

“ _Fuck!”_

 

Shiro paused.

 

There was an all encircling silence about the cliffs of the desert. A furl of a breeze and the quiet of the baked stone had Shiro wondering if he had possibly imagined what he’d heard. He looked out, spanning the horizon from high ground and saw little. It was the scent that assured him his mind was not deteriorating as well.

 

Acrid and metallic, the burn of solar fuel, it was putrid in that it promised little mechanical recovery. It was a smell all too familiar and Shiro pitched forward to locate it. He peered down, angled left, and there, at an approximate four hundred twenty seven yards was a mangled heap of machinery and buried in the swirl of sputtered smoke was a person.

 

He was skidding down the ledge without hesitance and jogged toward them. Within thirty paces, back turned to Shiro, their body stiffened and they pivoted, edged with sensory response and keen with hearing. He was smudged with oil, his hair an inky tussle pulled up and out of his face with what looked like a wrist band used to ID students at the garrison. It was old.  

 

“Hey,” Shiro had been staring. He’d never seen anyone out in the crags of the desert that far. Admittedly, he’d not been that far himself.

 

His expression was partially guarded, assessing as Shiro drew near, before a hand raised to swipe a forearm across his cheek - dragging sweat and grease with it in an iridescent streak of gray. He was clutching a tool in his palm. Turning back to the machine, he responded; his voice quipped. He was young, perhaps nineteen.

 

“Hey.”

 

Shiro approached with caution, allowing for dismissal if desired, though it appeared they both knew help was warranted, despite wishes to the contrary. Upon his arrival, Shiro could see that although his equipment was limited, repairs had been established in clunky fashion and were ultimately ineffectual, albeit improvised. He knew his way around a hoverbike, but had not the means nor precise knowledge to repair it in full. It was, as well, an outdated model. Very outdated.

Shiro stepped closer, not quite in his space.

 

“I’m Shiro.” He presented his hand.

 

He paused, turning eyes unto Shiro that, upon a closer look, mirrored a starless galaxy of mauve and indigo. Thick brows quirked up, and something like amusement colored his expression.

 

“...Keith.” Keith took it. His shake was firm.

 

“Nice to meet you, Keith.” Odd circumstances as it were, it was intriguing at the very least. Keith sniffed, casting his gaze back over the internals, a maze of macgyvered components, and picked around the odds and ends. Shiro peered in, venturing to make sense of the homemade assembly accompanied by a schematic three decades a senior to his own vehicle. It was likely an heirloom of two generations.

 

“Likewise.” It was a delayed formality. He didn’t sound much pleased, but his bike was busted and they were exposed to the unforgiving radiance of a midday sun. Keith could have been baking for a while before Shiro had happened upon him. He was adorning a loosely fitted shirt, sleeveless, and pants that were tighter around his thighs and calves; designed to stretch and fold for maneuvering. Around his hips was the first splash of vibrancy as a jacket, red, white, and yellow was tied there.

 

He was leanly muscled, suggesting more than basic activity and exercise, and perhaps a year or two older than Shiro first presumed, though his thoughts were interrupted when he caught the sharp peripheral gaze of Keith; having pinned Shiro mid assessment.

 

“What.”

 

Straightening, Shiro shook his head, making to respond though realized he’d nothing to properly say. He was just interesting, though he couldn’t possibly vocalize the thought.

 

“I just… never knew anyone lived out here.”

 

Keith made a guttural response, as if he found something funny but not quite.

 

“Yeah, what’s a member of the garrison doing out this far?” Sweat dripped from the tip of Keith’s nose and perspiration beaded along his temple. He was flush and his skin looked rosy from being sunkissed.

 

Shiro was only there by chance. He had only happened across Keith and his mangled hoverbike because of luck. Or perhaps not.

 

“...Your converter is fried.”

 

Keith paused, casting Shiro a look before peering over the piece aforementioned. It was a converter, of sorts, nigh unrecognizable with age and tinkering, but was indeed beyond repair. Keith sagged, letting out air before pushing away from the vehicle with a firm shove.

 

“ _Shit.”_

 

He worried a plush lower lip, brows guttered before he tossed his eyes to the sky. He turned about, surveying the shadows of the land like a natural sundial before he cussed again, quieter this time, and untied the coat from his waist. Propping it above himself, he cast a shape of meager shade and made to take off in a general direction.

 

“Wait, where are you headed?”

 

Keith barely slowed.

 

“Out.”

 

Every breath of oxygen was a lungful of fire. Keith would certainly overheat.

 

“I could bring you to the garrison, get you the parts you need.” Shiro called, taking a few tentative steps forward as if magnetized to follow.

 

“No thanks!” It was said with such finality, the song of a relationship gone sour and Shiro was finding Keith was much more a fox of a fellow than he should likely acquaint himself with. But he was a stubborn man, battle hardened from biological warfare within himself and Keith somehow made him remember what it was like to have to work for something.

 

“At least let me give you a ride!”

 

Keith was a good distance away, though he turned about face, backpedaling, and offered a single mockish salute before turning back again; pointedly contending his need for help and Shiro felt something bud to life within him. He was cheeky and combative and Shiro had become accustomed to monotony and order.

 

He turned and made for his bike.

 

-

 

When he found him, Keith was jogging along a semi-shadowed path and looked only partially miffed when Shiro puttered up to intercept; the barrel of his chest expanding and contracting with heavy, hot breaths. It was obvious from his countenance that Keith was unused to such attention and was weighing whether to bare teeth or endeavor serrated amicability.

 

“I couldn’t leave knowing I allowed a man to perish in the desert. Hop on.”

 

Keith would have been annoyed at the implication, were he not caught between admonishing Shiro’s bravado and admiring Shiro’s apparatus. It was far newer than he was likely used to and for a beat, Shiro felt the itch to show it off.

 

“Nice bike.” He looked almost loathed to admit, as if he were giving something away. “You a captain or something?”

 

Shiro laughed. He couldn’t help it. “Not quite.”

 

Keith huffed, affixing the jacket back around his hips in silent acquiescence. Feigning deliberation, not familiar with accepting favors it appeared, Keith tapped half gloved fingers against his elbow.

 

“It’s not exactly a straight shot back to my place.”

 

“More of a reason to hop on.”

 

A brow quirked. Shiro met the look head on. Keith scoffed, his head dropping as he scuffed a booted heel against the earth. Lolling a head of black hair to the side, he elaborated.

 

“There aren’t exactly _directions_.”

 

There was a moment that passed and Shiro leveled with the information, turned it over before he pushed himself up and off the machine, stepped back, and gestured to it.

 

“Alright. You drive.”

 

There was a spark, and for a moment, Keith’s eyes were not quite so starless. He hadn’t expected that outcome.

 

“You’re fucking with me.” It was a crude way to express the excitement that Keith was not so successfully muzzling. It was an expensive machine, the newest model available and provided to pilots both capable and deserving. It was a risk to allow someone full reign that Shiro could not determine as either, but Keith was whimsical and wild and Shiro was somewhat eager to forget the rules for a day.

 

Keith hitched forward, kicking a leg over the seat of it and eagerly began to familiarize himself. Shiro moved to settle himself behind and began to explain.

 

“Alright, so with this model, you-”

 

The engine growled, a thunderous clamor and with a burst of agility, they rocketed ahead in a wash of earth and gravel. Keith manipulated the mechanical beast with a fluidity beyond Shiro’s exposure and it took all of Shiro’s concentration to hold tight. As a man inclined toward physical pursuits, engaging a muscled core and biceps was not difficult, yet Keith was of his own calibur.

 

There was a thrill about it that felt distantly familiar, that moment of remembering why, and when Shiro looked, Keith’s mouth was split into something broad and radiant.

 

They arrived in presumably record time to a house, humble in size and isolated, and Keith popped off the bike to skirt off and retrieve whatever components he needed. Shiro had little time to observe, wishing not to breach privacy despite curiosity, and Keith was returning soon regardless; a routine he was used to.

 

“Got it.” He said and slipped back in place.

 

“Okay, so this time-”

 

It was pointless. Keith revved, and they took off with no room for unnecessary conversation.  

 

-

 

It was sundown by the time they had managed a successful start up. Crass as the repairs were, they had struck their palms together in a high five upon completion, neither overtly talented in engineering and thus quite proud of their feat.

 

Twilight was bleeding into a scarlet dusk and Shiro had been away too long. The device around his wrist was beeping.

 

“It was my dad’s.”

 

It was said into a quiet that had comfortably blanketed the both of them. Stars were beginning to burn into sight against the navy expanse of the sky. Shiro watched as a titian glow haloed Keith in the last breath of sunlight.

 

“I ride to remember.” Shiro hadn’t asked, but the question had it’s own voice. It felt like something precious.

 

The vast, lonely void of the desert painted a spectacular piece across the sky. When the last beam of light had been swallowed by the horizon, the rock was cast with a tempered beauty - the luminosity of starlight, of moonlight.

 

Keith looked good in it.

 

Shiro looked away. He’d been gone too long.

 

When he looked back, Keith met his gaze and Shiro’s spine clicked straight, like his thoughts had been exposed for the absurdity that they were. He wasn’t a child anymore. And yet he’d missed what it felt like to be one.

 

“Thanks, Shiro. For your help.” He smiled, and Shiro thought it odd that such felt like a rare thing to witness.

 

“Yeah. Lucky for you,” or perhaps not.

 

“Whatever,” a snort punctuated the statement. He made for his ride, mounted, and brought the beast to life with a twist of his wrist and gloved hands. A brief once over, flicking on retro switches and clutches before the a flare of blue flame lifted Keith off the ground. Shiro thought that would be the last of it, an ineffable experience in the far reaches of the canyon, but Keith tossed a final look at him, bellicose and provocative.

 

“Later!”

 

Keith left Shiro in the dust of his decades old hoverbike, his promise of a secondary encounter ringing in Shiro’s ears and all he could think, with something like exasperation, like excitement, and the stars a blanket of promise, was lucky for him.

 


End file.
